Oklahoma Attorney General Says EPA Fracking Study Is Unnecessary

Jay F. Marks | The Oklahoman

03 APR 2014

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt isn’t high on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s latest review of hydraulic fracturing regulations.

Pruitt on Wednesday sent a letter to the office of the inspector general at the EPA in response to a Feb. 5 memorandum detailing plans to evaluate how the agency and states have done in regulating the process’s impact on water resources.

“I am concerned that this project is politically motivated and ignores the EPA's three previous failed attempts to link hydraulic fracturing to water contamination,” Pruitt wrote. “The U.S. Department of Energy has investigated hydraulic fracturing's potential harm to water supplies and found no evidence linking the drilling technique to groundwater contamination.”

Energy companies have ushered in a domestic oil and natural gas boom with hydraulic fracturing, a process that involves injecting large quantities of water mixed with sand and chemicals into tight rock formations to free trapped hydrocarbons.